Single-family home sales rose last year in Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties, but the prices they commanded continued to stagnate.

Orange County's median price posted a 2.1 percent drop — to $235,000 from $240,000 in 2012 — which the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors attributed to the slow recovery of the market's new-construction segment.

The realtor group said in its annual sales report that "a recession-generated reduction in new development" would lower average prices for the county as a whole.

On the plus side, Hudson Gateway stated in its Jan. 14 report that Orange County had a 23 percent increase in sales, the tops in the realtor group's service area, which also covers Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties.

In the mid-Hudson region, 2013 sales in Orange, Ulster and Sullivan reached numbers not seen since 2007 or 2008.

Orange County's 2013 sales of 2,170 houses was the top figure since 2,722 sales in 2007.

Ulster's 1,226 sales was the most since the 1,383 sales in 2007, and Sullivan's 418 sales last year was the most since 421 sales in 2008.

"We're finally seeing numbers that are close to pre-crash as far as volume is concerned," said Scott Wohl, executive officer of the Builders Association of the Hudson Valley. "But we're still not close to the price."

"We're optimistic the growth will continue" in 2014, Wohl said. "I think what everyone wants to see is a noticeable increase in the median sale price."

Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey in December found consumers bullish on the residential real estate market.

Despite the higher interest rates, Fannie Mae found consumers more optimistic about their access to mortgage credit than they were a year ago. The average 30-year loan was 4.41 percent last week, a point higher than a year ago.

"Consumer attitudes about the ease of getting a mortgage today are at their highest level in the survey's three-and-a-half-year history," Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae's chief economist, said in the report.

That, Duncan said, should offset higher rates, and "support a continued, but measured, housing recovery as we move through 2014."

Some banks are offering a wider variety of adjustable-rate mortgages.

Walden Savings Bank, for example, has a mortgage that in the first 10 years has a fixed rate, followed by an adjustable one.

That's an option for people worried about recently rising rates, said Walden CEO Derrik Wynkoop.

Wynkoop was optimistic that real estate conditions would continue to improve this year.

The leveling off of prices was one reason, he said, and he's also seen an uptick in home-equity loans, a sign of growing consumer confidence.